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A Nice Problem to have
For the last year, I’ve been running pretty much everything off old hardware I had lying around. It did its job – and still does it very well – but it’s time for an upgrade.
I’m now in the fortunate position that for the first time in about two years I actually have a small amount of spare cash to hand. Well, when I say “spare”, I mean “not immediately needed to pay a bill anywhere”. This means I have choices.
The first thing I need to decide is whether I want to stay with Apple or not. OS X has been my primary desktop for the last 2 years, and whilst it has a few features that make it stress-free – decent WiFi and phone synch support out of the box, combined with the integrated address book – there isn’t anything I couldn’t replicate in open source without a bit of tinkering. And I do miss running an entirely open source system. There’s also the fact that Apple hardware is ridiculously expensive for what it is. Component for component, even the cheapest Macbook can be had by a generic laptop supplier for nearly half the price.
I also need to decide on the level of portability I want or need. About six months ago, my laptop’s screen got fallen on (aka “The Guinness Problem”), and I haven’t got around to fixing it yet. That means it’s been anchored to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse for the last six months. There have been perhaps three occasions in all that time where I could have done with it being a laptop again, instead of a very quiet and power-efficient desktop. I anticipate in the next 3 months a total of five occasions – all of them “get around”-able – where I could do with power on the road and so I have to ask whether the premium for a laptop is worth it. I’m already planning on an E90 Communicator when they hit the market, so my “ssh whilst in the coffee shop” problem is taken care of. It’s whether I need something portable I can code on that is the issue.
This last one has led me to a rather philosophical point. The reason I am naturally resistant to getting a dream-machine dual-head, or even triple-head desktop setup, is that I don’t want to feel that moving from Manchester would require a great deal of thought. A laptop has the feeling that I could just pick myself up, pack a bag, and head anywhere in the World and still be in business. That feeling is perhaps immature, but I’ve been reading Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” in recent days and I’m not convinced it isn’t just that I’m in need of spending some time on the road. Either way, I know taking root in a way that closes that choice out would make me feel a little peculiar right now.
All this results in me now trying to decide what the right hardware to buy is, not on technical specifications or pipedreams of how technically superior I could be if I bought “X”, but a much deeper philosophical perspective: what do I want out of life? Do I want to be here in Manchester? Do I want the hassle-free existence of OS X, or the unbridled freedom and moral authority of a completely open source system?
Stupidly “Big Questions” to be asking of a technology purchase. Especially when the answer might just be a couple of a Mac Minis or a Stinkpad.
When I set up as a freelancers 2 years ago, I bought a lovely big powerful powermac g5 desktop machine, with the feeling that havig that as a base to work from would reinforce that feeling of "this is where I work, so I am now in work mode". However, I recently got the hankering for a more portable option, for much the same reasons as you; I wanted to be able to pick up and skedaddle anywhere I needed to be at a seconds notice. So I put "the beast" on ebay and bought myself a refurbed macbook pro.
I have to be honest with you, it’s one of the best decisions I have made as a freelancer. Not only is it possible to work from a nice pretentious coffee shop somewhere when the need/want arises, but I can also work from anywhere in my house. This is more useful than it first sounds: a few weeks ago, a client wanted to work closely together, the easiest option was for him to come to my house and for us to set up in the dining room. A desktop would have been a bit of a pain in that situation. Also this week I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather, but instead of losing a day’s progress (and money), I simply did some work from my bed in the morning and migrated to the office later in the day when I had picked up a bit.
I guess what I’m trying to say, in as many words as possible, is get a laptop. You can do everything you’d do on a desktop, with the added bonus of not being tied down.
Nick Harris
25 May 07 at 08:29